After Midnight carries Sheer Heaven now. They had a challenge and sent out sheets of Sheer Heaven for us to try. I came up with 5 cards-- it was fun!

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This was the third card submitted by me for the Club Posh Birthday Card Contest. The third time was the charm, as this card was one of the four winners!

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Allegra

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For Allegra, I made a background using Tim Holtz Distress Inks, colors Tattered Rose, Weathered Wood and Fired Brick. The camera stamp and the flower stamp (Posh Impressions) were stamped and cut out, Allegra's pictures mounted under it, and stuck to the background. Finishing touches were the eyelets and the *MEOW* ribbon.

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Junior

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These are images that use Posh Impressions frame stamps. Over at Club Posh, they have Member Galleries. They have a section where members can submit pictures of their pets...but they MUST be in a Posh Impressions frame! These frame stamps are so cool, and have so many uses. I can't wait to get more of them!

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This is the front of a little tiny scrapbook that I made from tags. I got the idea from the Tim Holtz DVD. This uses Tim's Distress Inks as well as his techniques.

For further details, and to see the rest of this project, please go HERE.

This was very easy and fun to do. Even if you don't care for the distressed look, it's a lot of fun to do stuff with tags, and I will have some more ideas up here very soon!

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Another project featuring the wonderful Tim Holtz Distress Inks. This one uses the colors of Weathered Wood and Vintage Photo. The Weathered Wood ink color has a nautical feel to me, and I wanted to use it for a Maine theme. So here it is!

The lighthouse photos were taken by me. I used Paint Shop Pro to convert them to black & white, and then printed them out on photo paper on my home printer. Using a color duster brush, I applied both the Weathered Wood and Vintage Photo inks to the pictures to give them that "oldified" (as Mike called it) look.

I remember old photo albums, where the pictures always had borders and sort of a deckle-edged cut, and I tried to re-create that here.

All paper used here is the same light grey cardstock. I started by making the actual card, and then stamped it with a series of Maine-related stamps that I own, using the Weathered Wood distress ink. I then used the color duster brush to add a little more ink, in both the Weathered Wood and Vintage photo.

For the blue panel on the left-hand side, I simply applied the distress inks directly to some of the grey cardstock. I then ran it through my newest toy, a paper crimper, both horizontally and vertically. I cut it to size, tore it on one side, and stuck it onto the card.

The tag is made of vellum. I have wondered what it would look like, to print a photograph onto vellum, and I finally found out. I selected this picture that I took of Spring Point Lighthouse, and used Paint Shop Pro to convert it to sepia tone. I then used Gamma Correction to lighten it a bit. I copied and pasted this to a new image that was about the size of the tag template, added the text, and printed it onto the vellum. I used the tag template for the Fiskars Shape Cutter to cut out the tag...this template also includes circles for the tag holes. This circle was cut froom a scrap of distressed grey cardstock that did not go through the crimper. I added the string bow, ran the whole thing through the Xyron®, and attached it to the card last, after the photos.

I got this idea from the current (Feb/March) issue of "The Stampers' Sampler". They did a spread on Andy Warhol-ish work. The original image from the magazine can be seen HERE (will open in a separate browser window).

This is just SO easy to do, and so very cool. Just stamp the image on whatever colors of cardstock you want...I used black pigment ink and clear embossing powder to heat-emboss them all. The original artist in Stampers' Sampler used the Fiskars Shape Cutter to cut out part of some of the stamped images, and so did I. Just line up the cut-out parts to the whole images, glue into place, cut into squares, and adhere to the card.

I did a series of cards based on this idea. If you would like to see them, they are HERE, on my personal stamping site.

...I like the Tin Man! :-)



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This is my second effort using Tim Holtz' Distress Inks™. The "Wizard of Oz" stamp (Stamping Ground) is based on illustrations from the original books, so I thought it was a good choice for the vintage look that the inks provide. The actual card is not as yellowy as this scanned-in image is.

First I cut some cream-colored cardstock to the size of the front of a plain card. I distressed it using the crumpled paper technique, as described in this post, using the Distress Ink in Mustard Seed. This was attached to the front of the card.

I distressed some of the same cream cardstock by just rubbing the inkpads onto the paper...I used several colors here...Walnut Stain, Tea Dye, Vintage Photo and Mustard Seed. These were torn to use as backing for the image and the main text. I think the effect is cooler if you tear the paper towards you rather than away, as the un-inked layer underneath will be exposed.

The "Wizard of Oz" people were stamped onto cream cardstock with the Walnut Stain ink, and then I used a color duster to apply a little Mustard Seed and Vintage Photo inks. This was mounted onto the distressed backing as shown. "FOLLOW the yellow brick road" was computer-generated onto vellum and stuck to the other distressed backings.

Before I attached it all together, I just laid the pices onto the card and thought that it needed something more. I liked the idea of background text, so I typed out the words to "We're Off To See The Wizard/Follow The Yellow Brick Road", copied and pasted to repeat, and printed it onto a sheet of vellum larger than the card. I then cut it to the size of the card and used a Xyron® machine to attach it to the distressed yellow card. All of the other stuff was then attached, ending with the inage, where I used gold eyelets as both an attaching means and an embellishment.

BTW, I bought that stamp a long time ago, when I first started stamping. This is the first time that I have used it. I always say that if you see a stamp that you really love ("The Wizard of Oz" is my favorite movie), buy it, even if you have no immediate use for it. Someday you WILL use it! :-)

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Lots of birthdays coming up, which means lots of card making! A stamper's work is never done! :-)

This card was easy to make and only required two stamps...the kitty (Catslife Press), and "happy birthday" (from the "Spunky Greetings" set by Close To My Heart®).

First, I brayered red, yellow and blue ink onto the front of a white card. I stamped the kitty in six different colors onto white cardstock, trimmed, and then made mats our of the same colors. This was done by either brayering or just applying the stamp pad directly to the white cardstock. I stamped "happy birthday" in red and matted that the same color as well. I then cut a white panel a little smaller than the card, and randomly stamped "happy birthday" in all six of the colors.

Everything was glued together as you can see here, and a finishing touch was the two red eyelets.

That kitty stamp looks so much like my Little Mitty! As soon as I saw it at the store, I had to have it.